4 Ways to Generate Passive Income with Your WordPress Site

You can say that building a professional-looking website on WordPress is easy.

Want an online portfolio that highlights your expertise and improves your employability? There are dozens of free themes that will get you just that.

Need an image carousel, contact form, or an interactive booking calendar? All you need is the right plugin and these functionalities are as good as yours.

WordPress is armed to the teeth with features that will help you create just about any site you can think of. But when it comes to monetization, it’s an entirely different ball game.

Sure, there will still be plugins and external tools that can help you with certain tasks. Your success, however, depends more on your marketing acumen, grit, patience, and willingness to learn the right monetization strategies that work for your WordPress site.

Interested in making big bucks off of WordPress? Then let’s jump right in.

Here are some of the benefits of displaying ads on your WordPress website for revenue:

Ease of DeploymentOne of the main advantages of display advertising is how easy it is to implement on a WordPress site. You just need to register on networks like AdSense, paste a snippet of code to your site, and wait for your account to be activated.

It’s FreeWhile most monetization techniques require an investment, display advertising is practically free. You don’t have to invest in product R&D, manufacturing, shipping, and so on.

Keyword-Optimized OffersMost advertising networks roll out ads based on keywords that a particular piece of content is optimized for. Not only will this lead to more click-throughs, it may also occasionally present the audience with something relevant and useful.

Sell Affiliate Products

Another way to make money while selling another company’s product is through affiliate marketing.

Just like display advertising, affiliate marketing also gives you the opportunity to make money without developing your own product. Simply head to an affiliate network like Clickbank or Amazon Associates and look for a product that can resonate with your audience’s needs.

Affiliate marketing rewards website owners with commissions whenever customers use a designated “affiliate link” and complete a purchase on the vendor’s page.

In addition to the ability to handpick the products you want to promote on your WordPress site, you can also include multiple affiliate links on a single piece of content for more chances of conversions.

A typical strategy is to write a product review or comparison article, which will allow you to insert your affiliate link as naturally as possible. Just remember to disclose your affiliation with any of the products you’ve mentioned in your content.

Offer a Paid Membership

If you want to embrace your role as an information provider or thought leader in your niche, then perhaps offering a paid membership on your WordPress blog is the best monetization tactic for you.

A paid membership works by granting users access to premium content in exchange for a subscription fee, usually incurred on a monthly basis.

The main challenge is to make sure you can provide members with information that no one else has. This can be accomplished in multiple ways:

Include DownloadablesTo increase the perceived value of your premium content, offer members downloadables like eBooks, reports, cheat sheets, or anything that can supplement their learning experience.

Don’t Skimp on Visual ContentIf you expect your audience to pay for your content, the least you could do is to liven it up with a generous amount of visual assets. Infographics, whiteboard animations, featured images — anything that can make information more digestible should be welcome in your premium content arsenal.

Offer Free ContentJust because you’re monetizing your website through a paid membership, doesn’t mean you should completely forego the development of free content. Don’t alienate your non-paying visitors and use public posts to win their trust.

Sell Products

Sometimes, you just need to take things the old-fashioned way if you want guaranteed results.

Selling products on your WordPress website, for example, is one of the most straightforward monetization strategies that undoubtedly have the potential to yield massive profits.

Of course, you always have the option to develop and sell your very own products. However, plenty of WordPress users choose to integrate an e-commerce platform and look for a drop shipping supplier, which allows them to sell products without needing to purchase inventory.

As a fulfillment method, drop-shipped products are only delivered by the wholesaler or manufacturer once a transaction has been completed on a website. None of the usual distribution channels would be necessary, thus, making drop shipping the ideal strategy for website owners with little to no e-commerce experience.

To start looking for drop shippable products, the most efficient approach is to use a platform like Oberlo — a drop shipping tool designed for Shopify. Once you find the products you want to sell, you can present them on your WordPress site with the help of a plugin like WP Shopify.

That means you’re losing around half of your potential conversions just by neglecting your website’s performance.

To make sure this isn’t the case, the first step is to run a thorough website analysis on GTmetrix. It works by providing you with an exhaustive list of performance-related issues along with the recommended actions to address them.

GT Metrix result

If you’re planning to cater to the international audience, another strategy is to use a CDN to speed up your website. Short for Content Delivery Network, a CDN works by leveraging multiple proxy servers to store and deliver cached website data.

CDNs also offer an extra layer of protection against DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service attacks, which is one of the most common cyber threats that can hamper your website’s profitability.

Conclusion

There you have it — some of the best strategies for generating passive on your WordPress website.

As amazing as these strategies are, none of them are designed to work overnight. Just stay focused, be patient, and handle every task with absolute care.

Want to share a WordPress monetization strategy? We’d love to hear about it in the comments below.